*** Note this was written in May 2019 for a Life University course called Positive Leadership. I figured I may as well share this on a public platform because what good are the writing/thoughts if I just keep them to myself?
Introduction
Why do people do what they do? Often times it stems from ego or a person’s determination of worth, importance, or confidence. This perspective of worth is the starting point to complete anything. A person’s perspective influences every decision made. That is why understanding where perspective comes from is important. If it comes from ill-advised or selfish motivations, the perspective will lead to inauthentic and short-lived meaning. However, if the perspective is founded in selfless motivations for the betterment of something greater than one’s self, that leads to authentic, powerful, and permanent meaning. Once perspective is understood, challenging the perspective and strengthening it follows. Proper perspective is about manifesting the truest ego form, and not letting any destructive ego take over. Reigning in one’s ego is a foundational strategy to lead one’s self in the desired direction in life and in turn, one’s team in the desired direction. This paper will analyze different ego forms, how perspective influences ego, and how team ego is valuable in a research context.
Defining Ego
The first step in developing a superior ego is to define the different ego forms. The first kind is a personal ego where every decision a person makes is solely for his or her benefit. Of course, one’s actions in life ideally would be beneficial to the individual. So, this is not insinuating that it is a negative thing to benefit one’s self. However, when one’s primary and overarching motivation is to look good and feel good, that is dismissive to the external world. That will not lead to fulfillment in the long run, and particularly is destructive in a team context. When each individual is neglecting the team’s success and makes decisions that purely benefit one’s self, this prevents a team from functioning at a maximum level. The desired ego to have is coined a team ego, and this ego entails not measuring actions by self-importance or self-worth, but by the importance and worth to a team. And the founder of this term is perhaps the ultimate example of leadership: Bill Russell.
In his book Russell Rules: 11 Lessons on Leadership from the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Winner, Russell writes, “I was the most egotistical player they would ever meet. My ego is not a personal ego, it’s a team ego. My ego demands — for myself — the success of my team” (Russell, 2002). As a basketball player for the Boston Celtics in the 1960’s, Bill Russell’s perspective was fully from his team’s viewpoint. This leadership style led to Russell winning 11 championships, which is still the record to this day for championships won by a player in any major team sport ever. By adopting and strengthening his team ego, Russell was able to dominate his opposition and achieve his team’s goals. Individually, he still desired to dominate, but his inspiration for wanting to individually dominate is the concept to hone in on. His inspiration was for his team and not for himself. In everyday life, individuals have the opportunity to choose the same perspective in achieving goals and creating impactful leadership.
Team Ego Benefits
There is practical logic to adopting a team ego to maximize success that is applicable to all team contexts. A perspective rooted in team ego increases efficiency and ultimately outcomes. If an individual solely uses a personal ego, then actions would only arise to benefit personal ego. And although some actions that arise from personal ego also benefit the team, they do not all. This in contrast to actions that arise from team ego, which are implemented with the sole purpose of supporting the team. To recap the logic: All actions that arise from team ego benefit the team, with a portion of these actions also benefiting the individual and all actions that arise from personal ego benefit the individual, with a portion of these actions also benefiting the team. In each case, the portion varies. Therefore, in order to fully support a team, actions should arise from perspective rooted in team ego.
There are so many aspects of life where personal ego is destructive and team ego is warranted. In a family context, it is a parent’s duty to adopt a team ego with the other parent in supporting the child fully. Parents should demand excellence from themselves to achieve success for their team; the primary motivator for individual success should be that it leads to team success. It is not advised for a parent to make decisions with the singular purpose to individually appear better because although this does help the team in some cases, if the other parent is worse off from the decision, the team itself may be weakened. Contexts outside of family include the workplace, friendships, and every day human interactions. For example, in order to lead effectively on a work team at a hospital, decisions have to be made out of team motivators and not personal motivators. In order for a friendship to work, an individual cannot just dismiss a decision’s effect on the other person. To maximize the friendship, both individuals need to remove personal factors for team decisions. In so many instances in life, people are a part of a team. And in these instances, perspective needs to come from the proper power sources. A part of that is destroying the negative power source of selfish personal ego.
Letting Go of Destructive Personal Ego
The first step in mastering one’s team ego, is recognizing and letting go of destructive personal ego. The ill-advised perspective of viewing life from a selfish vantage point does not benefit any team a person is on, or the world at large. This is a tricky proposition because there is a balance and also misinterpretation to avoid. A person does not want to go so far in the elimination of personal ego that team ego is weakened as well. Because in order for team ego to be nourished properly, personal ego need to be healthy also: It just can’t be overwhelming team ego. A person should not feel bad for making decisions that benefit him or her; the decisions should just not come at the expense of hurting a team. Most importantly in a team context, decisions should be indirectly benefiting a person. For example, a leader or participant in a team should make choices that directly and positively impact the team. If the person is then positively impacted as a result, that is ideal. But the primary driving force in the actions should not come from personal ego. Over time, having personal ego drive behavior will lead to decisions being made that do not benefit the team. Because when each individual is neglecting the x-factor of how individual decisions affect others, there will surely be negative consequences bring forth onto others in certain cases. It is like driving a car. A driver on the road has to be conscious of the other drivers to an extent; it is ok to drive towards a particular destination, but while driving there, other drivers should not be negatively impacted. The metaphor holds true for any individual in a team context. Therefore, a person should submit his or her personal ego and let team ego take over.
Character Development to Foster Team Ego
Allowing team ego to take over is a process. A critical mindset to adopt to make this happen is to value character over reputation. Being overly concerned with how someone looks to outsiders is an ignitor for and sign of personal ego getting in the way. Of course in some team contexts, reputation is important. But just like the idea that an individual’s benefit should manifest as a result of a team’s benefit, one’s reputation should ideally strengthen from one’s character strengthening. Having strong character comes first, and that comes with releasing any energies on appearing good and instead putting efforts to actually being good. Former basketball coach John Wooden articulates the importance of character in his famous quote: “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are” (Impelman, 2007). Once someone directs energies toward character and not reputation, it is much easier to remove personal ego from the equation when making decisions.
Research shows that focusing on character over reputation plays a major role in a leadership in team context. In the journal article titled “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development, the authors assert that authentic leaders are not motivated “for status, honor or other personal rewards”, but rather they are led by conviction and value-based causes (Shamir & Eilam, 2005, p. 397). Due to being led from internal values, leadership becomes more authentic and thus, is more successful in the long-run. This is partly due to the fact that intrinsic motivations, as opposed to more shallow extrinsic motivations, are more long-lasting. This authenticity is tied with a high level of integrity, which helps the group being led feel more secure in reaching a particular mission. As noted in the chapter titled The Journey to Authenticity, integrity is about “telling the whole truth” and attracts followers who know the leader will be transparent with the group (George, 2004). This perspective focus on character has compounded positive effects in enhancing authenticity, integrity, and team ego toward a particular outcome. A team will be more likely to follow a leader with high integrity, and more likely to adopt a team ego mindset to achieve a particular mission.
There are practical examples of how character overrides reputation in a leadership context. Say that there are two managers in two different counseling organization who supports individuals in prisons. One manager, India, focuses on her reputation and never desires to look bad. This leads to her hiding instances of error in her employee’s case notes and she cuts corners when it comes to monitoring the counseling sessions. Another manager, Jade, is very transparent with her employees’ work and she has developed the habit of being led by her strong moral principles. This has led to a positive work environment where employees have a growth mindset to improve as workers. Jade’s leadership style comes off as very authentic because she makes decisions based off core values and she always tells the truth. India is so concerned with her reputation that the impact her organization makes is not maximized; on paper the organizations appear to be running in a similar fashion. But on the inside, Jade’s employees feel more confident, are making a bigger impact, and are less stressed out than India’s employees. This is the direct result of Jade valuing her character and adopting a team ego, in comparison to India trying to perfect her reputation due to a destructive personal ego. Jade’s team ego allows the team to function optimally because decisions are made that empower the team to be great, while India’s personal ego helps to create a false appearance of impact and limits true impact as a result.
Team Ego during Adversity
Even if an individual has learned to prioritize character over reputation, destructive personal ego may still creep into an individual’s psyche during specific moments. It is easy to adopt a team ego when everything is going well in a team, but the real test is when a team is going through an adverse time. During the crucible of tough times, individuals are tempted with pressures to compromise values (George, 2004). It is during these moments that a person comes face to face with their true morals. For example, say there are two basketball teams: The Warriors and the Lakers. The Warriors have the best record in the league, and thus, each individual is more secure in their adoption of proficient team ego. However, the Lakers are struggling. A foolish person on the Lakers may believe that eliminating team ego and going back to being led by a personal ego is the way to go. But this is short-sighted. If every player went back to a personal ego, the team would just struggle even more and the spiral would continue. And just because a person adopts a personal ego does not mean he or she is disassociated from the team. The Lakers players in this example would still not be successful because their success is still tied in with the team’s success, whether they view it that way or not. All of the negative ripple effects associated with prioritizing personal ego – inauthenticity, deficient character, lower integrity – are magnified during adverse times. During moments of success, negative personal ego can sometimes be overshadowed if the team is still succeeding. But when a team is struggling, it is difficult to overcome individuals who lack adequate team ego. Therefore, having the perspective to accomplish goals for the team is still the way toward success and meaningful outcomes even during adverse situations.
Servant Leadership’s Role
When in a leadership position, showing servant leadership skills strengthens team ego. Servant leaders have a “fundamental desire to first help others” (Smith, 2005). Unlike a leader motivated by personal ego, this type of leader is not concerned with overpowering employees. Instead, servant leaders view leadership as a way to serve and uplift people. They are not concerned with directly uplifting themselves, unless they are uplifted as a result of the team being uplifted. This mindset reduces power struggles on a team, and team members feel more connected to the success of the team. There is a direct inverse correlation between the amount of power struggles in a group and the amount of empowerment in a group (Smith, 2005). When employees feel that they are not in unhealthy competitions with each other, they are more likely to support each other and rise each other up on the collective journey higher.
Servant leaders utilize power, but only to empower individuals in the group. The leader recognizes that team members “have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers” and given this belief, leaders are committed to the growth of the team members (Spears, 2010). This type of leader takes it upon him or herself to empower members. This leadership mentality is not bred from personal ego, but instead is a manifestation of a strong, selfless team ego. There are many destructive leaders out there that want to hold onto all of the power, and take it away from the members under them. But, this is selfish team leadership and does not yield to maximized team outcomes. Because when followers sense that a leader is consumed with keeping power, then that by definition disempowers the followers. This disempowerment restricts the motivation of team members to rise higher and make decisions that can potentially improve the team. Therefore, in order to function optimally, it is important for each member of a team to feel empowered. When each member is empowered to be great directly for the team’s benefit, the team is exponentially strengthened.
It is crucial to understand that team ego is not a replacement for a person’s own individual empowerment. It is stated that “the wish to govern one’s own life is one of the most definitive feelings in every human being” and that feeling should not be suppressed in a team context (Eylon, 1998, p. 19). Servant leaders that have team ego understand this, and thus, aim to cultivate empowerment through team excellence. Because only through team greatness and group activity “could the full potential of individuals be realized”, according to philosopher Mary Parker Follett (Eylon, 1998, p. 19). So, having a team ego culture is not a detriment to individual empowerment, but instead is necessary for it. A leader that empowers employees not only benefits an employee’s self-worth and fulfillment in the work, but also aids the work itself. When each person is free to function at his or her optimal level, team productivity skyrockets. A cycle is then created in that an individual’s empowerment makes the team better, which only empowers individuals even more. That is why a team ego culture that emphasizes individual empowerment can multiply a team’s success quickly.
A major part of empowerment is creating an atmosphere that does not restrict employees’ freedom and self-initiative. A sign of personal ego is when empowerment appears as simply “rhetoric and the centralization of power and control” is the reality (Eylon, 1998, p. 22). In other words, when a leader is not invested in the team and has power over all decisions, there is little trust. In order for employees to gain power in this centralized system, they must first go through the leader. This is an ill-advised strategy and not true empowerment. In order to create successful outcomes, it is recommended for leaders to model an organization’s strategies to allow full and equal interaction among staff. Team ego is strengthened when a leader does not foster a setting where his or her approval is needed for every decision and action.
Empowerment conflicts with the leadership style of overpowering over employees excessively and taking ownership away. This sort of leadership is bred from personal ego and a leader’s lack of concern for the team. This type of leader measures his or her success solely by personal standards and for personal achievement. A lack of employee motivation is a hallmark of this sort of environment because if an employee feels that his or her decisions do not matter and play a minimal role in the team’s success, an employee’s efforts are hindered and discouraged. For a leader who wants motivated employees to lead toward productive outcomes, empowerment is necessary because it “equates with motivating them to achieve as well as enabling them to do so” (Tuckey, Bakker, & Dollard, 2012). Employees are more motivated when they have more control over the success of the team, and in turn, the meaning of their individual work. Leaders should think critically about how to foster a true empowering atmosphere, where employees are motivated to achieve and have the delegated power to take ownership toward team success.
Servant leadership is also tied to deeper and more long-term thinking, which is necessary for a team’s success. Whereas a traditional leader may focus on short-term operational goals, servant leaders often expand thinking “to encompass broader-based conceptual thinking” (Spears, 2010). This is tied to a leader’s passion for understanding team members and desire to “identify the will of a group” (Spears, 2010). This type of leader is not comfortable leading a team into any direction he or she conveniently wants to go into; instead, this leader listens to the group and uses the information to influence his or her team decision-making. Leaders should not be hesitant to putting in more effort to understand employee’s desires from the start because in the long-run, this will only lead to more informed decisions. Servant leaders often have several characteristics that are foundational tools in leadership style such as listening, empathy, awareness, foresight, and healing among others (Spears, 2010). These characteristics often match with the development of a strong team ego because when a leader is team driven, he or she is naturally more inclined to focus on others and adopt a higher social intelligence level.
A leader who makes decision simply for personal gain would not be concerned with empathizing with team members. This contrasts with a servant leader who prioritizes active listening to the group’s desires and thoughts, in order to maximize the efficiency of the team. If a team member is in need of support, a servant leader will not view the need as a burden, but will instead lend a healing and supportive hand. A lot of servant leadership traits comes down to care and concern for the team as a whole, both on a personal and success level. Servant leaders want team members to function optimally due to genuine concern for their well-being, but also for success of the team. For a leader wanting to create a successful team, a lot can be learned from a team ego mindset and servant leadership characteristics.
Servicing One’s Self
Although servant leadership is about prioritizing service to the team, service to one’s self cannot be overlooked in the process. A person cannot lead if a person does not first lead himself or herself efficiently. A servant leader should have a high level of self-confidence and pride to achieve meaningful outcomes. The action of caring for and empowering a team is not mutually exclusive with the action of empowering one’s self. A servant leader’s motivation often comes from “a core, egalitarian belief that they are no better than those whom they lead” (Smith, 2005, p. 7). This thought should also be joined by the thought that those being led are no better than the leader as well. The goal is for every member to feel empowered, including the leader. Both corners of that idea ideally would be manifested to both serve a leader’s team, and also have the inner confidence to lead effectively.
A misinterpretation to avoid from the emphasis on servant leadership and team ego is to neglect self-reflection. Removing destructive personal ego is not about forgetting personal characteristics of one’s self; it is simply about being inspired by something greater than one’s self. It is important for servant-leader to still “scrutinize their personal belief systems and reasons for aspiring to lead” because a leader’s core is ultimately the compass when making decisions (Smith, 2005). A leader needs to have his or her mind stable and motivations clear on wanting to lead. The hope is that the motivation stems from wanting to better the group for a specific noble cause, and not from a selfish desire to promote one’s own gain. The message is that personal self-reflection is still necessary, even when a team ego is adopted. Studying servant leadership tactics is an effective strategy for people aspiring to lead teams toward successful outcomes through a team ego mindset.
The Right Type of Conflict
Demonstrating team ego in a leadership context is also tied to the type of conflict an organization has. Having personal ego is often manifested by the presence of A-type conflict, which are “disagreements over personalized, individually oriented matters” (Amason et al., 1995). A leader would be unwise to foster an environment in which A-type conflict reigns supreme over the more beneficial C-type conflict, which “requires teams to engage in activities that are essential to a team’s effectiveness” (Amason et al., 1995). This beneficial conflict fosters open dialogue, and leads to creative solutions often about the issues that matter most. When each individual measures his or her success by the team’s success, conflict flows more productively because each person has the same goals during the conflict. Even if individuals all have a team ego, it is natural for people to still have differing perspectives on what is best for the team. That is okay because having healthy disagreements can be helpful in determining what is truly best for a team. Team ego and the presence of C-type conflict go hand in hand often in team settings because C-type conflict is often a direct symptom of team members having a team ego.
Team Ego’s Contagiousness
An important point is that team ego is contagious. This principle is defined as social proof, and it explains that people look toward others to measure appropriate behavior, and this behavior can spread like wildfire among team members (Cialdini, 2003). Team members have the choice to conform to the standard behavior, or they may leave to find an atmosphere that matches the behavior they seek. This has impactful implications in terms of a leader’s perspective. When a person at the top forms a team ego mindset, there is a high probability that team members underneath will adopt the same perspective.
An example of contagious behavior is in the context of a hypothetical counseling organization that works in a prison setting. If the leader at the top makes decision to solely impact his or her status and not the organization’s mission, then that provides a harming model for the rest of employees. Employees will notice that the leader is manifesting personal ego and does not measure success by the team’s success. Employees would be hesitant to conflict with the leader and let team ego influence his or her work because the environment created does not value this perspective. If this employee makes a decision to positively impact the mission, it will go unappreciated by the leader. Therefore, employees are encouraged to let personal ego dictate their work if they decide to stay. This contrasts with a leader who adopts a team ego mentality, empowers employees to create positive impact towards the mission, and measures outcomes by the success of the team – not by his or her individual success. This atmosphere will encourage a more positive mindset among employees.
Self-Reflective Analysis
My own leadership has strengthened through my understanding and utilization of team ego over time. This is a natural trajectory for most people, as the education system in America greatly encourages personal achievements over team achievements. Grades are given out individually to students and very rarely is a student’s grade impacted by another student’s grade. Rare exceptions are during group projects, but even in those assignments, students often get individual grades. Due to this, I measured my success by my personal success, rather than any team’s success for a long time in my life. It is important to note that personal ego is not inherently bad if it pushes a person to achieve positive goals. For me, this was the case. I look back on these years and think that my personal ego benefited me to put myself in positions later on in life to show my true leadership style in team contexts. I believe that since undergrad college, I have better adopted a team ego style and enhanced my leadership as a result.
Team Ego at Work
My leadership particularly grew in my first two jobs out of college, completing AmeriCorps service in Philadelphia schools. Though I still had traces of positive personal ego, it was to serve my students. Nevertheless, I started to understand at this point in my life that team ego is preferred over personal ego. I was on a team of about fifteen AmeriCorps members, all working in a classroom setting at a middle school and all joining together at the end of the day for after-school activities. I realized that our success as a team was dependent on not only my individual success in the classroom, but also our interactions and teamwork skills outside of the classroom. In order for our team to have the greatest impact, we each had to develop team egos that were stronger than our personal egos. An example of when my team ego was ignited was during the creation of a morning greeting activity. I designed a chant and game to greet the students with, and I was conscious of incorporating my team in the activity because I knew our impact would be maximized if all team members participated. Individually, I could have appeared better if I just did the activity myself and took ownership for this, but the team would not be better.
This team ego perspective extended to the next year when I was a Community Projects Coordinator at YouthBuild Charter School and created service projects for high school students. I was on a team of nine coordinators and it was important for all of us to work together to fully support the students. It was not important for any one of us to receive credit for a particular service project or idea during a community meeting because we each measured our success through a team lens and not an individual lens. During this year, I also exhibited servant leadership skills because the work I was doing was directly benefiting the students. I was not an authoritarian leader, but I was intentional in empowering the students and servicing them positively.
Team Ego at Home
Over the past year, my team ego has reached even higher heights as I have developed my relationship with my girlfriend Mariam and have prepared for parenting come June. I understand that as parents, Mariam and I have to lose attachment to any negative personal ego and adopt a team ego to benefit our child and in turn ourselves. It is harmful if we are each measuring our success in a vacuum and do not consider the other person when decisions are made or actions demonstrated. I understand that if I make a decision that benefits me directly, but hurts Mariam, that only hurts us as a team. I am always conscious of how us as a team will be affected by my personal decisions. That decision could be as simple as if I should exercise in the morning and potentially wake Mariam up, or save the workout for later in the afternoon when she is at work. In this case, my team ego has led to me delaying exercising because that would lead to the optimal outcome for the team. I value Mariam getting a restful night’s sleep over any potential benefit I would experience from exercising in the morning, as opposed to after work. Decisions could be more serious and be a financial decision, or a choice that affects how we raise our child also. In all cases, I have tried to be self-aware and be led by team ego and not any potential harmful personal ego.
We are both ultimately servicing each other by being our best selves. I am conscious of this fact and to be my best self for the betterment of us as a team. I encourage Mariam toward her greatness, and want her to feel empowered to be great because I know the impact our individual greatness has on the team’s greatness. Also, when we have conflict, I never want it to arise out of personalized selfish matters. I aim for it to be C-type conflict and to be productive dialogue about an issue going on with the team itself. I strive to reach a desired compromise during these moments, instead of talking just to prove myself right and feed any negative personal ego. Lastly, I understand how all types of egos are contagious. I know that by me adopting a team ego, I am encouraging Mariam to do the same. And when I notice that either of us may be letting personal ego override team ego, I address it positively. We will become parents shortly and I am excited for the journey. I am confident that my team ego will continue to develop and my leadership will further grow to new mountaintops.
References
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